2017 Tata R4 Express: Carlsen, So, and Eljanov win

1/17/2017 – The leaders are certainly making themselves felt and noticed, and it was never clearer than in round four. Magnus Carlsen faced Chinese prodigy Wei Yi, and it was a fascinating game to watch as he eventually broke his resistance and scored a win. Not to be outdone, leader Pavel Eljanov overcame B. Adhiban in an excellent endgame, while Wesley So kept pace with a fine win of his own over Loek Van Wely. The Challengers was all-out war with not one draw in seven games. Express report.

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The elite Tata Steel tournaments in Wijk aan Zee are underway and take place from January 13-29, with two main tournaments, the Masters with both Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin as headliners, as well as Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Baskaran Adhiban, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Richard Rapport, Dmitri Andreikin, Wei Yi, Pavel Eljanov, and Loek van Wely. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 1.30pm, except for the last round on 29 January 2017, which begins at 12.00pm. Both rounds on the Chess On Tour days start at 2.00pm.

Full report with grandmaster annotations to follow...

Masters tournament

Round 4 - Tuesday, January 17

Aronian, L.

½-½

Nepomniachtchi, I.

Carlsen, M.

1-0

Wei, Y.

Giri, A.

½-½

Andreikin, D.

Rapport, R.

½-½

Wojtaszek, R.

Van Wely, L.

0-1

So, W.

Harikrishna, P.

½-½

Karjakin, S.

Adhiban, B.

0-1

Eljanov, P.

Game of the day by Daniel King

After a good portion of moves had been played with not much for him to hope for, Magnus Carlsen saw reason to become optimistic, took control, and won the game to move into second place. Only second, because...

... tournament leader Pavel Eljanov also emerged victorious after outplaying his opponent Baskaran Adhiban and converting beautifully his advantage in a bishop endgame.

Wesley So has every reason to smile: not only did he beat Loek Van Wely in a great showing, but he is now tied with Magnus for second-third, and is world no.3 in the Live Ratings with 2815.

It was a fascinating openings battle in which both players gave the impression of being prepared and unprepared. Levon Aronian emered with an advantage, but it soon dissipated and he drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi.

These are the statistics for the Masters section, with 64.3% draws and about a third of the games ending in decisive results

Current Masters standings

Challengers tournament

Round 4 - Tuesday, January 17

Grandelius, N.

0-1

Xiong, J.

Tingjie, L.

0-1

l'Ami, E.

Hansen, E.

1-0

van Foreest, J.

Dobrov, V.

0-1

Ragger, M.

Lu, S.

1-0

Bok, B.

Jones, G.

1-0

Tari, A.

Guramishvili, S.

0-1

Smirin, I

The Challengers stats are impressive to say the least. With 7 wins in 7 games in round four, the total number of decisive games so far has been 71.4%

See also

1/22/2017 – It is hard to explain what happened in round eight, and to speculate seems an exercise in futility. The game between Richard Rapport and Magnus Carlsen had been quite balanced, with no real edge going to either, yet in the space of five moves, the world no.1 made one error after another, losing a piece at the end. And that was all she wrote. Aronian defeated Giri in record time, while Adhiban beat Andreikin. The Challengers saw a surprising six draws. What a day. Express report.

See also

1/19/2017 – Who could have predicted it? While Pavel Eljanov had been making headlines with his grip of sole lead, all eyes were also on Magnus Carlsen who had been chasing after the lead, punctuated by a super win over Wei Yi in round four. Still, after Carlsen drew in round five against former second Nepomniachtchi, and Eljanov lost to Aronian, it was Wesley So who scored a fantastic victory over Harikrishna to take the sole lead. Karjakin fell surprisingly to Adhiban in a French Defense. Express report.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!